Being an online freelance writer is one type of skill that you can use to make money online. But there are a wide variety of other skills that can be used in a similar manner. Every website and blog on the Internet needs technical skills. This can include graphic design, web design, search engine optimization, social media marketing and promotion, content editing, and so much more.

It’s not the sort of online money making opportunity that’s covered in glory, but everyone needs a set of eyes to make sure the numbers add up at the end of the year. Every business and most individuals need someone to help prepare tax returns, especially time or resource-strapped small business owners. The Income Tax School provides an array of training programs that’ll certify you with tax prep in as little as 10 weeks, and once tax season rolls around you’ll be able to charge an average of $229 per return as a freelance tax preparer with this side business idea, reports CNBC.
Upwork: This website offers a great marketplace for selling just about any professional service. You don't need a merchant account, a website of your own or anything else for that matter. All you need to do is be able to provide a high-quality service at a reasonable price. But be informed, you will have to compete with many others that are constantly bidding on open jobs.
One of the biggest and best-known at-home tech support employers is Apple, whose At Home Advisor program employs thousands of people at competitive, experience-based salaries. At Home Advisors are part- or full-time employees, not independent contractors, so there’s a measure of security here that’s often missing from work-at-home gigs. The benefits package, including Apple stock, is pretty nice too, and every At Home Advisor gets a free iMac.
But first, a caveat: Meal sharing platforms operate in a legal gray area. The food service industry is heavily regulated, and many jurisdictions make it all but impossible for home cooks to profit from their passions. At a minimum, you need to make sure you comply with all local health department directives and obtain all applicable licenses before you begin inviting diners into your home.
Whether it’s an important consumer application, a specialist app to solve a particular niche problem, or even a time-wasting game you can play on your phone, you can create a massively successful business if you build software that helps people. (Look at the rise of Slack—the team communication software that went from side project to billion-dollar company in just 2 years.)
Set up the site. Choose a website building platform, such as WordPress, Joomla or Drupal. Next, choose a domain name and web hosting for your site. The domain name is your web address. Web hosting is a service that connects your site to the internet. Once you have your domain name and web hosting, go to the control panel of your hosting account and install your website platform. Design your website by choosing and installing a theme.[6]
Domain name trading has been around for the last couple decades, and while most slam-dunk names have long been sold off, there’s still plenty of others that you can get your hands on for relatively cheap and broker as a way to make money online. Before you dive in, however, beware that some experts doubt the long-term viability of this idea for making money online. However, there’s always the chance you might just land on a lucrative domain name for a future billion-dollar company. To get you started, here are some tips from GoDaddy, arguably the world’s largest and most famous repository of domain names.

Textbooks cost hundreds of dollars. It’s not uncommon for engineering and healthcare-related books to come in just below $1,000. But with the high cost of textbooks comes opportunity. Flipping them for profit. By using a service like BookScouter, you can instantly compare book prices across 44 different vendors. You pick the one that offers the best price and voila. Book sold.

If you are more confident in your skills, you can also market directly to websites and blogs. You can contact the sites by email to market your services. That will also enable you to select the specific types of sites that you are more comfortable working with. Since there are literally thousands of websites and blogs on the web, the potential market is limitless.

In 2017, there were almost 90 million pet dogs in the US. Which has opened up a huge opportunity to make money online as a dog watcher or sitter. Specialized sites like Rover or Care.com connect pet owners with pet walkers, sitters, and boarding houses to help look after their best friends when they’re at work or on a trip. If you’re an animal lover, you can make extra money and get to spend some quality time with a furry friend.

Sign up for a reputable affiliate network: Aside from Amazon, there are dozens of top affiliate programs for bloggers and even large reputable affiliate networks, such as Share-A-Sale, Clickbank, and Skimlinks, that specialize in connecting you with merchants who are looking for affiliates to sell their products. They charge relatively low commission fees for the privilege of connecting you with merchants, and the merchants on these sites tend to offer much higher commission percentages or set dollar amount payouts.
Protect Yourself With Enforceable Contracts. You don’t have to be a lawyer to draft an enforceable freelance contract. You just need to find a legitimate freelance contract template and modify it for your use. It’s fine to use a client-provided contract as long as you review it thoroughly, ask piercing questions if necessary, and seek an attorney’s advice when in doubt.
Most question sets pay from $0.50 to $5.00 and take 3 minutes to 25 minutes to complete. Some pay $10, $20, or even more if you match the demographic profile they are looking for. Beyond the email earning component, InboxDollars also allows you to earn by watching daily TV clips on their site. InboxDollars works on a cash-only system, so you don’t have to worry about converting points to cash or only being compensated in gift cards.
Raise your hand if you love the idea of earning extra income or ditching office life to learn how to make money at home. Well, you're not alone. According to a 2017 telecommuting report by FlexJobs, the number of U.S. employees who worked from home at least half of the time has grown 115% in twelve years, from 1.8 million employees in 2005 to 3.9 million in 2017.

Clearly, there's a lot of demand on Amazon, and if any product is going to sell, it's going to sell well on Amazon. But the goal here is to source the right products that will easily sell at the world's largest online retailer. Generally, products between $10 and $50 sell very well here. Just be sure to do the right market research before jumping on this bandwagon.

Last but not least, you can also earn money online by building an online community, although the monetization strategies you can pursue will vary a lot depending on your goals. You can build a community with a blog, for example. You can also build an online forum and charge people for membership. You could even build up a Facebook group and use your influence there to sell and promote products.
MyPoints is a rewards site that pays users to perform micro-tasks on a daily basis. For example, users can earn 500 points per day by watching videos, earn 5 points by visiting certain partners (in an internet scavenger hunt of sorts), or 10 points per dollar for playing games. As with many rewards sites, consistent daily use is important, so you’ll want to bookmark MyPoints or make it your homepage (so you don’t forget to check-in).
Hello! I am 26 and just hit a huge life crisis wall! I had a great job and was let go out of the blue, with little to no money left for bills and other needed expenses. I was scheduled to drive home from Florida to Michigan tomorrow with my boyfriend and he has no idea I have only $400 to my name. I have no idea what to do or how to get enough money to get me through this trip. I already have found a new job but I don’t start until we are back in 10 days! I feel like I am so underwater!

Short-term rental platforms handle most of the thorny logistical considerations that keep regular homeowners from becoming landlords, including payment processing and security deposits. And after a string of highly public mishaps in their first few years, they’re increasingly safety-conscious, so the likelihood is high you’ll be able to verify the identity of every person who crashes at your place.

One of the cool things about Google AdSense is that it's so easy to get set up. If you have a blog or website, you can sign up for a free Google AdSense Account. From there, Google will give you a unique code that you will paste onto your website. Google takes it from there, tracking your page views, traffic, and earnings on your behalf. There is no upkeep or maintenance to get this thing going, which makes it a no-brainer if you have a website already.
I think what you’re asking is how you can make extra money to pay your real estate taxes. If that’s the case, it depends on your current financial situation, the amount of your estate taxes, your skills, and more. If you visit the “Make Money” section of our website, we have a few articles with different ideas that may be helpful for your situation: https://www.dollarsprout.com/category/make-money/

If you're serious about making money online, start a blog. Blogging is one of the easiest and most sustainable income sources. As long as the blog is setup the right way, in the right niche, with the right content targeted at the right audience, and the offer is complementary to the content, you could make a tremendous amount of passive income from a blog.

Make a realistic schedule that works for you. Some home-based businesses are based in the field whereas other home businesses require work output through the computer. Regardless of what kind of home based business you run, you need to understand that the days of three hour lunches on the company dime are over. You are in charge, which means you alone dictate if you are going to make money or not.
There are loads of resources for making money online as an affiliate. You could source products from ClickBank, Commission Junction, Rakuten Marketing, Share-a-Sale, Impact Radius and many others. Plus, many of the larger companies have their own affiliate programs as well. Do your due diligence and find the right company with a relevant product or service to your audience that you can sell as an affiliate.
The music industry might not be as strong as it was in the 80s, but there are still plenty of ways to make money online as a musician. Sites like SoundBetter let you sell your services as a songwriter, producer, or session musician to thousands of customers a month. While Musicbed, Music Vine, Marmoset, and SongFreedom are perfect for licensing your music to TV shows, movies, and web series.
At-home consulting is a great way for new parents who’ve scaled back their hours or sidelined their careers to keep their skills sharp and their names out there. It’s also a great side gig for professionals who’ve grown stifled in their current roles but don’t yet have the confidence or client base to quit their 9-to-5s and strike out on their own. With time, a consulting side business can easily turn into a full-time job, with all the freedom that entails.
Gig economy jobs have quickly changed the way Americans earn money. They’re not always the highest-paying opportunities, but they do offer a more flexible means of earning than your traditional 9 to 5. As a Postmates courier, you can capitalize on this trend and make money delivering things like groceries, takeout food, or even alcohol depending on the state.
Write pitches. If you have located a client for whom you want to write, send pitches, which are topic ideas for articles. Write pitches that not only show your expertise but also demonstrate your enthusiasm for the topic.[15] First, read the publication to which you are sending pitches to familiarize yourself with what they publish. If applicable, identify a specific section and send our pitch to the appropriate editor. Also, include a brief summary of who you are.[16]
E-Commerce Portals. The best way to improve your at-home crafts business’s visibility and credibility is to launch your own website. And the best way to monetize that website is with a turnkey e-commerce portal. Shopify is a relatively cost-effective, feature-rich option for serious sellers – you can build and maintain a decent store for $15 to $20 per month. Volusion and Squarespace are worthy, comparably priced competitors.
At-home consulting is a great way for new parents who’ve scaled back their hours or sidelined their careers to keep their skills sharp and their names out there. It’s also a great side gig for professionals who’ve grown stifled in their current roles but don’t yet have the confidence or client base to quit their 9-to-5s and strike out on their own. With time, a consulting side business can easily turn into a full-time job, with all the freedom that entails.
Are you good at catching typos, poor grammar, or other mistakes in written text? If so, you may want to consider becoming a freelance proofreader. In 2014, Caitlin Pyle made over $43,000 working as a freelance proofreader — in her spare time. After she had a ton of success doing that, she started Proofread Anywhere to teach others how to do the same.
This is similar in concept to micro-tasks, except that it is oriented toward specific services, such as cleaning services, pest inspection, handyman services, house cleaning, lawn & garden services or any of the skilled trades. It might actually be more accurate to say that it is a platform where skilled service providers can offer their services to site visitors, similar to Angie’s List.

Not only will this multiply the money you’re bringing in in a serious way, but it protects you against any sudden changes in the market or in your business. Remember that old saying about putting all your eggs in one basket? A few hours a week committed to just one or two of the following opportunities will put you in a much stronger position to be financially safe and independent.

There’s more. Well over half enjoyed flexible scheduling that allowed them to stop and start work at their discretion. As competition for millennial talent heats up and the unemployment rate reaches multi-year lows, employers are offering ever more flexible work arrangements that allow white-collar (nonproduction) employees to perform their duties from just about anywhere.

It doesn’t pay much, but if you’re a healthy person and want to make a bit of extra money online, the AchieveMint app will reward you for doing things like walking, tracking your food, or taking health surveys. AchieveMint works by connecting to fitness apps you might already be using like Fitbit, RunKeeper, Healthkit, and MyFitnessPal and then giving you points for certain actions. For every 10,000 points, you earn $10 with no limit on your earnings.

Keep in mind though, you don’t need a website to do sponsored content since you can also get paid if you have a lot of social media followers. My wife has a pretty big Instagram following, and she gets all kinds of sponsorships. Not only does she get paid in cash, but we get a lot of free stuff, too. We’ve received free rugs, free lights, and free carpet cleaners. She only promotes things she loves though, so this strategy works really well for her.

Determine if you have the equipment/tools to make your home-based business a success. Knowing what you need in terms of tools should be included in the cost. In some cases a simple computer and certain software will do the trick. However, if you are running another type of business, such as an embroidery or catering company you may need to purchase certain equipment to get your home based business off the ground.

When it comes to at-home income, selling your unwanted stuff is the definition of low-hanging fruit. Even if you’re intentional in your purchasing habits, you likely have possessions you can do without. Examples include old kids’ clothing and toys, sporting goods you no longer use, out-of-fashion wardrobe accessories, electronics, valuable but nonsentimental keepsakes such as watches and jewelry, old furniture, dusty tools and outdoor equipment, and perhaps even big-ticket items like a motorcycle or second car.

More and more companies and startups especially are embracing remote work—where you use online collaboration and communication tools to do your work from wherever you want. And you don’t have to be a 20-something hotshot designer or coder to reap the benefits of working remotely. Many remote positions are for customer support positions or other customer-facing positions that don’t require specialized skill sets.
Then once you’ve got your domain name and hosting sorted out, it’s time to pick a CMS, or Content Management System, that will let you update pages, build your blog and integrate with all the other services you need. It’s hard to go wrong with WordPress—the CMS powering close to a quarter of the internet. Keep in mind that eventually as you start growing traffic to your blog, you’ll be wise to invest in a managed WordPress hosting plan, where all of the settings are custom-tailored and optimized to work particularly well with WordPress-powered websites.

If Uber Eats or Lyft weren’t a great fit, Uber is yet another option. By driving with Uber, you have the flexibility to drive whenever you want, which means you can start making money as soon as you are approved to drive, and it’s all on your schedule. They’re currently offering a $1,050 bonus to new drivers in our area (Virginia Beach, VA) but that amount will vary based on your regional market. See their website for more details.

You don’t have to start your own online business from scratch. Instead, you can build one (very quickly) by helping out people who already have a successful business. Every service business has a long list of past clients they’re most likely not doing a good job of keeping up with—but their neglect is your opportunity. It’s up to 5x more expensive to attract a new customer than it is to keep an existing one. By helping businesses follow-up and bring back their old customers, you’re saving them money (and making your own!). A follow-up business like this can be as simple as a series of emails you write for a client to help them bring back old customers (check out this step-by-step guide for videos and example pitches). All you need is some writing skills, time to research and craft an effective outreach campaign to prospects in a profitable niche.
This isn’t to scare you off. I simply want you to know that this guide is going to focus solely on ways to make real, sustainable extra income online. Not just a few quick bucks. I want to share all the mistakes I’ve made that got me to where I am now so that you don’t have to go through them, and can build a successful online source of income for yourself.
However, if you're looking for realistic ways you can start earning money online now, then it really truly does boil down to seven paths you can take towards profit. Some will provide you with immediate results, helping you to address your basic monthly necessities such as rent, utilities and groceries, while others have the potential to transform your life by revolutionizing your finances in the long term.